|
Community Links |
Members List |
Search Forums |
Advanced Search |
Go to Page... |
|
Thread Tools |
07-13-2017, 10:51 AM | #14701 |
Dr. Salt NEO
Join Date: May 2014
Posts: 727
|
Finished up Ryuki last night for my Heisei marathon, though in this case it was a re-watch as Ryuki was the first KR series I ever watched in full. I noticed a lot more flaws this time around, but even so it still remains one of my favorite seasons I’ve watched so far.
Most of my issues with it are in regard to the plot, much of which really makes no sense at all. There’s honestly a whole lot of lazy writing. Mirror World is never satisfyingly explained and while the show does get into the monsters being drawings by Yui and Shiro, the actual origin of the Mirror World or how the monsters came into being is never clarified. Same goes for Mirror Yui, it explains that the Yui we knew throughout the whole show was the Mirror World version, but never discusses how or why any of this exists. Also the whole Rider battle doesn’t make sense. If Shiro organized the whole thing, why can’t he just take the wish himself without the fight in the first place? Why does he need people to fight for it? And since he does have to win it himself, and created Odin specifically as an extremely OP Rider to ensure he does win, why not be more proactive? He’s constantly telling the other Riders to hurry up and kill each other so they can face Odin, but why not just have Odin be very aggressive and go after them and end it basically immediately? Why hold him back? It doesn’t even matter if Odin “dies” since he can just create a new one, so it’s not like he’s concerned about losing his trump card too early. I don’t have a problem with these questions in and of themselves, it’s very possible to come up with reasonable explanations for it all. My problem is that at no point does the show attempt to do so, it just expects you to accept everything at face value. Other than that, my only other major complaint is how so many of the fights conclude with the combatants seemingly just randomly stopping for no discernible reason. A good number of fights build up to a major showdown involving multiple final vents, but then it ends with them just leaving Mirror World with no explanation. The most glaring examples are a few instances where a scene ends in the middle of a battle, it cuts to some other characters doing something else, and then when it returns to the Riders, they’re all in completely different places doing different things with no hint at all of how or why the battle ended. Sometimes they use the Mirror World time limit as an excuse, but the time limit seems completely arbitrary and is most often used just for narrative convenience. Basically, it felt like a lot of the battles concluded in ways that didn’t make any sense within the story just because they needed certain Riders to survive throughout their scheduled number of episodes. I can forgive questionable plot elements if I find the characters enjoyable enough (Which I do in Ryuki), but it was hard at times here because, as I mentioned earlier, the show just has a lot of lazy writing. Despite my issues with the plot, I still really like Ryuki. Part of it is probably bias since it was the first KR series I watched in full, but besides that, I really like a lot of the characters and the suits are among my favorite in the franchise. I like Shinji as a protagonist, his goal to stop the fighting is admirable and he’s just a fun guy to watch. I really like how his presence slowly influences those around him, especially Ren, Kitaoka, Tezuka, and towards the end, Shiro. It’s most notable in Ren and Kitaoka, both of whom you see slowly changing over the course of the show as a result of Shinji’s consistent and stubborn insistence that the Rider War is wrong and his determination to stop it. I like that it never really directly addresses this through exposition, but rather you see it expressed more subtly through their actions and behavior and how it changes over time due to their exposure to Shinji’s ideals. That’s one of my favorite things about Shinji as a main Rider compared to others in the franchise, his influence and impact is very unique and more understated than usual. As a Rider he’s really not that notable, he has a lot of power due to his Survive card but is clearly not much of a fighter and his heart just isn’t in it. He doesn’t have much effect with his direct actions, it’s his beliefs and ideals that are the driving force behind his influence on the other Riders. That, to me, is one of the ultimate examples of what a hero really is. Not someone who solves everyone’s problems by himself, but someone who’s influence inspires others to follow his example. Yes, Ren and Kitaoka and others never truly follow his example and become real heroes, and I’m probably giving it all more credit than it deserves…but it’s still a good demonstration of how that kind of person can have such an impact on those around him. I had a lot more to say about the other characters too, but this is already getting long so I’m going to keep it shorter. Kitaoka is actually my favorite Rider in the show, I felt that he’s ultimately the character that showed the most change and development throughout the story. He starts off as an enormously selfish jerk (Though an incredibly charming and fun one) and while this never really changes on the surface, you do see his attitudes towards some of the other Riders (Especially Shinji) softening over time. Ultimately, I like how towards the last episodes he’s come to accept his inevitable death to his disease, and realizes that he never really cared about the Rider War in the end. Despite his statements about wanting immortality, he comes to see that he did have a good life, even if it’s destined to be short. His development is a good bit more subtle than the others, but I found he had more overall depth than anyone else and really liked him. Asakura is another of my favorites. He’s not really interesting as a character, he’s pretty much a one-note villain whose entire personality is just that he’s an insanely violent psychopath obsessed with fighting. But he leaned so heavily into this role that it works. He was incredibly entertaining to watch as most of his fight scenes involve him beating the absolute shit out of whoever he’s fighting, and his frequent, enormous fits of rage that involved screaming his lungs out and attacking inanimate objects were more funny than anything else. I don’t know if it was intended to be humorous or not, but the guy is just so incredibly hammy and over the top compared to the rest of the cast that I found him kind of hilarious. Ren was the only main character I didn’t really like at all. For the most part I found him obnoxious and annoying, basically a wannabe tough guy who’s actually just kind of an idiot. Fortunately, the show seems to agree with that at points, as it goes out of its way to challenge his views and demonstrate why he’s wrong. Despite that though I still found him more annoying than anything else, because he never really learns from any of it and keeps going back to his default forced-cool-guy personality. the only scene where I truly liked him was near the end when he’s breaking down at Shinji’s side as the latter is dying, finally openly acknowledging how much Shinji had come to mean to him as a friend. So that’s some words about Ryuki, and still doesn’t cover all of my thoughts on it. I have more to say on characters like Kitaoka and Ren, as well as other characters I didn’t get to (The other Riders, supporting cast such as Reiko), but this has gone too long already. Now I’m on to Faiz…we’ll see how that goes.
__________________
My Action Figure Photography |
07-13-2017, 01:13 PM | #14702 |
Henshin Heaven
Join Date: Jan 2016
Location: Inside a Hyper Battle Video, help.
Posts: 1,242
|
You summed up how I too feel about Ryuki waaay more eloquently than I ever could!
__________________
|
07-22-2017, 09:25 AM | #14703 |
Dai Shogun
Join Date: Jul 2014
Location: Germany
Posts: 7,529
|
I'm halfway through Blade now. And I still like this show as much as I did early on, so I assume I'm one of the rare cases who likes Blade from start to finish
But this time around, instead of mainly talking about the things I liked I wanted to touch on something I don't like: Mutsuki. This character is so annoying. He starts out strong, you care about why he is the way he is (the backstory of him being imprisoned in a locker as a baby is great!) but as soon as you think the character starts evolving he just falls back. Firstly the thing how he treats the Rider battle as a TCG, even going so far as to only wanting to imprison Undead so he can use their powers. Okay, the idea isn't bad, but why is this guy who knows first-hand how these cards can ruin somebody so childish about it all of a sudden? And then, all development we had so far is flying straight out of the nearest window as he starts being possessed by the Category Ace. Again. To be fair, they seemed to want to have this integrated into the Category King being around (who is cool by the way) but I don't like it. They could've easily made this a bit different by it being about Mutsuki learning to respect his powers instead of being possessed yet again. On the flipside, Hajima aka Chalice is fantastic. I'm a bit bummed that I was spoiled and thus knew who he was from the start, because as soon as that one Undead shows up and tells us he isn't the real Chalice it gets really interesting. But I still don't know what exactly his role as the Joker is so I'm eager to find out. Also: Quote:
Quote:
Okay, it's not the Peacock card but Blade uses his fusion card with the gadget Shima brought over from Nepal to reach his Jack form. |
07-22-2017, 10:46 AM | #14704 |
I have a problematic type
Join Date: Jan 2012
Posts: 10,424
|
I think Mutsuki suffered the most from the writer change halfway through the series. It feels like the new writers didn't really know what to do with the character so they just kept doing the mind-controlled thing for a lot longer than they probably needed to.
|
07-22-2017, 11:10 AM | #14705 |
Dai Shogun
Join Date: Jul 2014
Location: Germany
Posts: 7,529
|
Quote:
Since you seem to know this stuff, was the actor of Chief Karasuma ill or just busy filming other stuff or something? He barely shows up in the series for long periods of time. |
07-22-2017, 03:41 PM | #14706 |
I have a problematic type
Join Date: Jan 2012
Posts: 10,424
|
Yeah, the original writer left midway through the show. The new writers - who were also the original writers on Decade - came on board around episode 30. Once the new theme song kicked in, that was your sign that the show was under new management. It's honestly not that noticeable if you aren't aware it happened, unlike some other Kamen Rider series (*coughHibikicough*). The only major difference is that Mutsuki really started regressing as a character.
Quote:
Since you seem to know this stuff, was the actor of Chief Karasuma ill or just busy filming other stuff or something? He barely shows up in the series for long periods of time.
|
07-22-2017, 06:59 PM | #14707 |
Veteran Member
Join Date: Apr 2017
Posts: 1,301
|
Quote:
Yeah, the original writer left midway through the show. The new writers - who were also the original writers on Decade - came on board around episode 30. Once the new theme song kicked in, that was your sign that the show was under new management. It's honestly not that noticeable if you aren't aware it happened, unlike some other Kamen Rider series (*coughHibikicough*). The only major difference is that Mutsuki really started regressing as a character.
No idea. I assume he was just a recurring character and never meant to be a regular. |
07-23-2017, 05:08 AM | #14708 |
Avi by @CSarracenian
Join Date: Jul 2016
Posts: 4,186
|
Quote:
__________________
|
07-23-2017, 07:49 AM | #14709 |
The Immortal King Tasty
Join Date: Jan 2012
Location: Every diner you've ever been to.
Posts: 3,833
|
Yeah there's a pretty huge difference between an open ending that just wants a sequel (*cough*Faiz*cough*) and one that's open because it's a logical place to end the story. Blade stops exactly where it needs to.
__________________
|
07-23-2017, 10:28 AM | #14710 |
I have a problematic type
Join Date: Jan 2012
Posts: 10,424
|
Blade has the best ending of any Kamen Rider series. It's perfect the way it is.
|
|
TokuNation News & Rumors |
ToyRise RyuKenDo |
Alternative Cut of "Day Of The Dumpster" Released |
Shodo SUPER Kyoryuger Teaser |
Figuarts/Seihou GRIDMAN |
SH Figuarts BoonBoomger Red |
All times are GMT -5. The time now is 04:27 AM.
|